Archive for the ‘Facebook’ Category

I don’t usually do “reblogs” but the Matt McKeon blog post, “The Evolution of Privacy on Facebook“, is so striking and timely that I had to comment on it. The post is a visual chronicle of Facebook’s privacy changes since 2005. In 2005, content was only visible to limited circle of friends and their immediate network. Fast-forward to today and almost all of a Facebook user’s activity is available on the Web.

I think users are getting the short end of the stick on this deal and this type of privacy erosion will eventually lead to a mass exodus from Facebook. What? It’s already happening?

Publishers, on the other hand, are writing about the privacy issues but aren’t ready to put the kibosh on their Facebook strategies.

This privacy leakage ties into my post on the Geolocation Privacy Proposition. McKeon’s infographic doesn’t include “Location” but that could be just around the corner.

Click here to view the full McKeon blog post.

Facebook unleashed its new wave of site integration tools including the new Like button for external sites. This button works like the regular Like button on Facebook, where you see a status update and can give it the thumbs up.

Please note, this post is rated D for Daredevil.

To implement these changes you will need to muck around in the PHP. So make sure you’re wearing your developers propeller hat and some sort of Star Wars attire.

This micro video tutorial shows you how to find the Facebook button code, add it to your site’s template code, and get it up and running. However, this video only shows you how to add the Like button to the Single Post page in your blog. You’d also want to do the same thing with your Main Index Template page.

If you really don’t want to tinker with the template code, there are some plugins floating around. I’ve seen three different plugins already but haven’t tested them out yet. If you developed a Like button plugin, drop a comment with a link to the site. I’ll add comments to this post as I see them as well.

Related Posts/Resources:

• Facebook Like Button Developer page
• Adding Facebook Like Social Plugin to WordPress
• Just Launched: Facebook Like Plugin for Every Post on Your WP Blog!

Code Snippet: the modified Like button code

And this is a zoom-in of the Single Post template page where I pasted in the iFrame code.

Facebook Like Button Code in WordPress Single Post Theme

I’ve been overwhelmed by all the Facebook changes. Things are moving as quickly with Facebook as they are with Twitter. So I thought I’d review the Facebook changes one chunk at a time and see some of the practical implications, for sites and for users.

One of the changes Facebook just launched is its site personalization services. This allows external sites to display content based on information from a user’s Facebook account.

For example, I just visited Pandora.com for my morning music fix and saw this:

Because I was logged into Facebook, the Pandora site was able to:

1. Display the top header bar with my Facebook profile picture. The bar also includes the message ” Hi Jesse. Pandora is using facebook to personalize your experience. Learn More[link] – No Thanks[link]“.




2. Display my profile picture below the music tracks and pull in links to artists I had Facebook fanned (Snoop Dogg and Susan Boyle).

Initial Reaction

I wasn’t surprised to see these additions because Facebook had posted a massive picture to my Facebook Wall and description of some of the changes. My first thought on seeing the change was to think “Wow, that’s pretty cool.”

I was viewing the change from the perspective of a blog owner who could potentially do something similar. However, I could see how people could be freaked out after seeing the change. “Why is Facebook following me, even out on the Web?”

User Privacy

So what do you do if you don’t want Pandora to display this Facebook information and connections? You just have to click on the header and either click on the “X” or on the “No Thanks” and your Facebook profile and your artists pics go away.

I tested the persistence of this “No Thanks” opt-out action by refreshing the browser, opening things up in a whole different browser and the Facebook information did not reappear.

Facebook Posse To Go?

I also visited the food review site Yelp, and the site displayed my Yelp-using Facebook friends.

These are friendly faces so I didn’t mind seeing them on the site. Most of the time I’m on a different social network, I do want to find users that I friend on Facebook or follow on Twitter.

Further Research

I didn’t test to see what happens on the Facebook side of things after doing key actions, like adding new Pandora channels or adding new Yelp reviews. I imagine that would require further exploration of Facebook privacy settings which I’ll reserve for a future blog post.

Bottom Line

I like the personalization changes, so far. I’m going to actively explore all the “under the hood” mechanics of the Facebook-publisher connection and test things out jesseluna.com when that is possible.

I think that major “disconnects” will occur when we start seeing our Facebook information on sites that we don’t want to associate with in any way shape or form. For example, if an employment site like Monster.com starts using this feature, it could start publishing information to your Facebook account. I haven’t researched how things appear on Facebook, so this is speculation. But if your boss follows you on Facebook, you could be in for a lot of explaining.

What do you think about these personalization features? Cool or creepy?

The iPad will never replace my desktop, but it has already replaced my laptop after just two days.

I love, love, love it!

@JesseLuna said it best: “If HBO was your ‘home box office’, then the iPad is your ‘mobile box office’.”

It’s also a dream for reading, blogging, and managing social media networks on a realistically readable device. (I love my iPhone, but the small screen has its limitations.) I know I will be using my iPad for most of what I do as a non-techie user. I also know I will still need to go to my desktop for large professional projects and probably most photo editing. (More on photos later.)

My setup consists of the iPad, the Apple cover, the Apple Bluetooth keyboard, a stand, and a lap desk. (And sometimes earbuds.) This is perfect for sitting in an armchair. Of course, if I were at a desk or table, I would not need the lap desk. Also, when lounging in bed the stand is too precarious, so I just lay the iPad flat on the lap desk. The Apple cover is made of a grippy rubber material that doesn’t slide around at all, which is awesome.

Being a creature of habit, the first things I tried on my new iPad were all the things I already used on my laptop and/or iPhone: Safari, Gmail, Twitter, Flickr, Facebook, Netflix, Scrabble, Momento, iTunes, Wikipanion, and Notes.

Overall, these all worked as well or better than the on the laptop/iPhone. There are a few tiny glitches, where features don’t work the way I expect, but all of them are software issues, which I’m sure will be addressed by the developers.

Aha! moments:

- streaming Netflix in bed (with earbuds) while my husband sleeps

- stocking my iBooks shelves with free texts thanks to Project Gutenberg

- writing this blog post in Pages which I will later email to @JesseLuna

All of these tasks could be done with some other gadget or device, but before now I would have used a separate gadget or device for each activity.

New stuff I love on the iPad: Pages, iBooks ereader, Marvel comics viewer, Toy Story read-along, NPR, USA Today, and ABC viewer. Gorgeous picture quality, leagues better than my (10-year-old) PowerBook. Super-fast over WiFi. Screen size is perfect for personal viewing. So many options – both media and content!

Stuff I haven’t done, yet, because it isn’t supported: Hulu.

Stuff I haven’t done because I haven’t bought the right app(s): games.

A final note on photos: there is a camera connecter accessory, but I didn’t buy it. I simply took photos with my iPhone, emailed them to Flickr. On the iPad I opened the Flickr app, selected my image and saved it to my Photos, then accessed it from there. That works fine for me.

Visual Communications Company’s (VCC) has re-designed its site from the ground up. The new version is much more social media friendly. This kind of Web site transition is becoming very common for Business to Consumer (B2C) and online companies, but is still a new thing for brick and mortar Business to Business (B2B) companies. VCC manufacturers and sell LEDs and LED mounting devices.

I was interested in this site change from a designer’s point of view and also from a business perspective. This is a great example of a company with a broadening social media strategy.

[Disclosure: I work for one of VCC's distributors, Component Distirbutors, Inc. (@CDI). However, this is not a paid post.]

I asked VCC’s President, Andrew Zanelli, about the site changes.

1) Please describe the changes you made to the VCC site.

We made a ton of changes to the site. First, we wanted to improve the ability for a visitor to find the info they are looking for. We accomplished this by reorganizing the content in a way that is more intuitive to our users (engineers and purchasers). Additionally, we optimized every page for the search engines. This involved really getting a thorough understanding of the words that people us when describing our products. While we were already familiar with most, our analysis showed that engineers and others had some unique ways of describing the benefits our products provide. By adding their terminology to our site, we are now capturing a larger amount of traffic.

Additionally, we incorporated our blog into the vcclite.com domain. Previously, we had it hosted on a unique domain vccblog.com. This was due to the limitation of our host’s platform. This was a deal breaker and we moved our whole site to the WordPress platform. We use our blog to communicate not only general news about VCC, but also industry news and VCC design wins. Our stakeholders really like the stream of information that VCC provides.

Additionally, we added a wiki to the new site. The wiki is focused on VCC product FAQs and is a constantly being updated with written content and videos that describe common issues that are encountered when someone is new to our products. Now, a user doesn’t need to call in to find the answer to their question, or if they do, we can refer them to a video that describes the solution. One of the goals here is to help reduce the amount of service type calls that our sales and engineering teams field.

All of these efforts are feeding into our vision of vcclite.com turning into an online community for our stakeholders. Not a community like a Facebook, although we do have a fan page on FB, but rather a community of super high quality information being shared about VCC and our efforts.

2) Was the change more about addressing problems with the previous site or about seeking new opportunities? Or both?

The world of sales and marketing is changing very quickly. While no one can really agree on how quickly we are moving away from traditional media, I am convinced that it behooves VCC to be on the leading edge of new ideas and technologies that will help drive leads to our salespeople. An optimized website, a fine-tuned PPC campaign, SEO… these are all things that help potential customers find VCC. More and more people are simply using Google to search for product information. By aligning our efforts with the tools of the future we are getting a serious head-start over our competitors and at the same time saving money that would otherwise be wasted on traditional efforts that are incredibly difficult to assign a true value to. We are not totally abandoning traditional media. In fact, we still have a strong print campaign. It works hand-in-hand with our new efforts. Partners like Hearst Media Electronics Group have really embraced online marketing and have figured out how to blend the two together for a comprehensive approach. VCC loves to participate in its programs.

3) Where do you see the site and VCC going next?

Next generation for VCC is to make our site more interactive. The wiki will help this. Additionally effort will also be made in the social media space. We have some unique ideas here that I prefer not to share yet. Otherwise, our laser beam focus will remain on lead-gen and brand awareness.

Twitter has been giving my @jesseluna account the cold shoulder, not displaying tweets from others for over 8 hours. It’s 9:09AM Pacific Time and the last tweet update was at 35 minutes after midnight.

Apparently I’m not the only as The Next Web reports that many accounts have been affected. TheTwitter blog has not posted any information on this freeze out yet.

I can see Replies and tweets that use hashtags that I follow but that’s it. The Next Web also points out that you can see updated tweets using the Twitter Lists feature.

Hopefully Twitter can patch things up soon. Until this gets resolved, I’ll focus on conversing (not just reading posts or retweeting) then probably head over to Facebook to see what’s going on in the world.

Did your account freeze up? Did you jump to another social networking site? If so, which one?